Thursday, August 30, 2007

Has nothing to do with this being a love song....It's all about the title and the "feel" of the song. Two things happened today that made this the theme. The one I'm comfortable talking about here is that my printer FINALLY decided to cooperate with me. Shocking!! That machine and I have been at war with each other for weeks now. As of this morning, it was winning. Ah, but today for some reason, it decided to give me a break and printed all my shots for an up coming show most beautifully!! Woooo Hooooo!

So, grap a glass of your favorite wine, sit down in your most comfortable chair and soak in this wonderful song....

Well worth the read.HT to David over at Fearfully Human for point it out.

NEW YORK—Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

The press conference came as a surprise to humankind, as God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy, He has traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians and laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable mysteries, deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock, outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it—My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall."

God praised the overwhelming majority of His Muslim followers as "wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks rare exceptions.

"This whole medieval concept of the jihad, or holy war, had all but vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war, only unholy ones. The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."

Continued God, "Read the book: 'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful, Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page. But, no, some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks Muslims are all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of pan-Islamic cultural progress down the drain."

God stressed that His remarks were not directed exclusively at Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world religions.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

"I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm fucking serious!"

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

A man runs into the vet's office carrying his dog and screaming for help.

The vet rushes him back to an examination room and has him put his dog down on the examination table. The vet examines the still, limp body and after a few moments tells the man that his dog, regrettably, is dead.

The man, clearly agitated and not willing to accept this, demands a second opinion. The vet goes into the back room and comes out with a cat and puts the cat down next to the dog's body. The cat sniffs the body, walks from head to tail poking and sniffing the dog's body and finally looks at the vet and meows. The vet looks at the man and says, "I'm sorry, but the cat thinks that your dog is dead too."

The man is still unwilling to accept that his dog is dead. The vet brings in a black labrador. The labrador sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, and finally looks at the vet and barks. The vet looks at the man and says, "I'm sorry, but the lab thinks your dog is dead too."

The man, finally resigned to the diagnosis, thanks the vet and asks how much he owes. The vet answers, "$650".

"$650 to tell me my dog is dead !" exclaimed the man ....

"Well," the vet replies, "I would only have charged you $50 for my initial diagnosis. The additional $600 was for the cat scan and lab tests."

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

In 1783, George Washington visited the natural springs of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Along with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, he took a keen interest in the supposed medicinal qualities of mineral water, a subject of much scientific research at the time. The following year, a friend wrote to him to describe the difficulty of bottling the strongly effervescent Saratoga water. “Several persons told us that they had corked it tight in bottles, and that the bottles broke,” wrote Washington’s friend. The birth of the United States thus coincided with the origins of bottled water.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

New documentary film about the Dafur crisis by Breakthru Films.This is the kind of work I believe we should be supporting and encouraging film companies make more often. You can see a trailer and release schedule here:

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

A friend posted these at another blog. They are pretty dang funny so I thought I'd post the link here. Kudos to this crew for their sense of humour and for poking fun in a very creative way!The cool part is any one is welcome to print them off or post them on their own blogs if they link back to the site. Awesome!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso."We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy."A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England."The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Continuing with the "serves them right" theme of the week.From Reuters....

Chicken and rice ends Indian thief's toilet trauma

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Dozens of bananas failed to do the trick but an Indian thief has finally produced a gold necklace he had snatched and then swallowed after police fed him a hearty meal of chicken, rice and local bread.Sheikh Mohsin, 35, grabbed the 45,000-rupee ($1092) necklace from a woman in the eastern city of Kolkata on Friday and popped it into his mouth when cornered by police.

Officers then fed him 40 bananas over a few hours believing they would act as a purgative, and sat back and waited for results.

Mohsin passed an uncomfortable night in jail, but not the piece of jewellery.

Police said on Sunday he was then given more substantial fare.

"Now he wants to go free and doesn't want to even hear about bananas any more," senior officer Gyanwant Singh told Reuters.

A tired and rueful Mohsin was, however, staring at 3 years in jail if convicted, Singh added.

"Bananas were good enough for another thief who had swallowed an ornament a few months ago, but Mohsin was definitely a tough cookie," said one clearly impressed police constable.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Picking the wrong bank cost Herman Chavez a lot more than a bad interest rate.

It cost him, his brother and girlfriend a trip to jail. On Tuesday, the three pulled up to Bank of America's drive-through at Juan Tabo and Brentwood NE and tried to withdraw $350 from Dr. Craig Steichen's bank account using a driver's license that police suspect was stolen from the dentist's car.

However, the teller working the drive-through window happened to be a longtime patient of the dentist and called him at his office. The teller kept stalling the trio. About 27 minutes later, police arrived and took all three into custody.

Chavez, 21, his brother, Matthew, 27, and girlfriend Jenna Saganitso, 21, were in custody Thursday evening at the West Side jail on various theft charges.

"This serves them right," Steichen told the Journal. "Things happen for a reason.This just proves that Albuquerque is still a small town."

About two weeks ago, Steichen parked his car at a gas station in the 7000 block of Montgomery NE and ran inside to buy a cup of coffee.

When Steichen returned to his Ford Excursion, he discovered someone had broken in and taken his wallet, briefcase, laptop and handgun, police said.

A few days later, someone used the dentist's credit card to make online purchases, police said. And then on Tuesday, Sanchez and the trio pulled into the bank's drive-through.

"I guess they figured that they didn't have enough money, wanted to try again and it blew up all over them," said Albuquerque police Detective Sammy Marquez. "They picked the wrong bank, and it caught up with them."

The teller who alerted police was working her last day on the job. She started her retirement Wednesday.